[HN Gopher] Apple to Soon Take Up to 30% Cut from All Patreon Cr...
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Apple to Soon Take Up to 30% Cut from All Patreon Creators in iOS
App
Author : pier25
Score : 102 points
Date : 2026-01-28 20:59 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.macrumors.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.macrumors.com)
| leoh wrote:
| Sad, mean, and pointless
| advisedwang wrote:
| Apple needs this to stay afloat, you know
| Gualdrapo wrote:
| Knowing there are Apple fanboys around HN (I got downvoted
| for saying the liquid glass thing and the iphone air were
| pointless) I fear they will take your comment seriously
| SchemaLoad wrote:
| Those greedy artists and creators depriving Apple of their
| profits.
| jojobas wrote:
| Poe's law hit me hard.
| legitster wrote:
| This means Apple is literally going to take nearly 3x in fees
| from Patreon's customers than Patreon is taking from their own
| customers.
|
| My understanding is that the reason the number 30% is so magical
| is a historical anomaly. When software was physically distributed
| back in the day, 15% of the MSRP was reserved for the distributor
| and another 15% for the retailer. When these digital marketplaces
| were set up, the companies just said "well, we're the distributor
| and the retailer, so we'll keep both". Forgetting the fact that
| the cost to distribute and retail the software is literally
| pennies on the dollar of what it used to be.
|
| I think the irony in this case is that this is a greed problem of
| their own making. When Steve Jobs announced that apps on the
| original iPhone would only be $1-$3, he set off the first
| enshittification crisis in the software industry. In 2008,
| Bejeweled cost $19.99 if you wanted to buy it on the PC. On the
| iPhone it was $0.99! This artificially low anchor price is what
| kicked off the adoption of ad and subscription driven software
| models in the first place.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| My understanding was that the retailer margin was 50% and the
| distributor margin was 10%. So Apple/Steam/etc went "half of
| 60% is a great deal".
|
| Of course the retailer margin is never actually 50%. That's
| theoretical if 100% of product is sold at MSRP. Actual retail
| margins are about 25% because of sales, write-offs, et cetera.
|
| OTOH when there's a sale in Steam, they still get their full
| cut (of the reduced price).
| legitster wrote:
| From what I could find, it _does_ seem that major retailers
| back in the day (CompUSA, Circuit City, etc) were only making
| 15% margin on software sales. This is much lower than other
| product categories - but also software didn 't take up much
| floor space.
| gdilla wrote:
| its agency model vs retail model. Recall - Amazon hated the
| agency model, where the publisher sets the price (and 30%
| cut goes to app store - Jobs sold this as amazing deal).
| Retail model the retailer sets the price, and the publisher
| is guaranteed the wholesale price. Amazon preferred the
| latter because they competed on dynamic price setting. this
| was so long ago we forget.
| kccqzy wrote:
| Steve Jobs never announced a price ceiling for apps on the App
| Store. The well-known I Am Rich app for iPhone retailer for
| $999, the actual price ceiling.
| jmclnx wrote:
| I thought that already happened :)
|
| But from past threads in a Linux Forum, seems this only applies
| to people using the Apple IOS App for Patreon. Not sure if using
| Apple Laptops.
|
| But if you use Patreon's WEB Site directly, the fee cannot be
| collected by Apple.
|
| That was my take anyways.
| repeekad wrote:
| I can't remember being more enraged than when I learned my
| YouTube premium was more expensive per month than it needed to
| be because I had signed up on iPhone, so many people wasting
| money every month, and YouTube isn't allowed to mention the
| option to pay on web
|
| If they weren't a public company, you'd think they were the
| mob. I'll never trust the Apple ecosystem ever again
| volemo wrote:
| > But from past threads in a Linux Forum, seems this only
| applies to people using the Apple IOS App for Patreon. Not sure
| if using Apple Laptops. But if you use Patreon's WEB Site
| directly, the fee cannot be collected by Apple.
|
| Moreover, the fee only applies to the subscriptions made using
| Apple's payment system. That being said, in most jurisdictions
| their payment system is the only one developers can use in an
| app. IMHO, _this_ is the real problem.
| jajuuka wrote:
| Yep, the tax comes from using the Patreon's in-app purchase
| system. Using a browser on an iPhone/iPad or any other device
| will not be taxed. Seen many creators putting in their bios
| suggesting people use the browser instead of the in app
| purchase.
|
| Patreon fought this for a while but Apple has all the leverage
| unfortunately.
| plorkyeran wrote:
| Per the article it's already happened for 96% of creators and
| this is the deadline for the remaining 4%.
| joshstrange wrote:
| When the App Store first launched I think 30% was pretty fair fee
| for Apple to collect, but that was a long time ago, and before
| IAP/Subscriptions. Apple might still be entitled to some
| percentage but they've expanded to cover more and more things
| (like this Patreon change or Kindle back in the day) and now we
| have moved far, far beyond the pale.
|
| Apple (perhaps like all corporations but I'm focusing on Apple)
| is a greedy company that has massively lost it's way. Tim Cook
| support fascists and/or anything to improve the bottom line,
| especially if it increases "services" [0]. Alan Dye (thank god he
| is now busy screwing up Meta) shipped the worst UI revamp I've
| seen in a while from a company Apple's size and the
| iOS/iPadOS/visionOS/macOS software is all in dire straits. And
| they managed to do all of this while alienating developers left
| and right and playing chicken with governments around the world
| [0] instead of relaxing their hold on their platforms.
|
| But who cares? The stock price went up. /s
|
| I was overjoyed to see Alan Dye leave (and Jony Ive) and hope
| that we don't have to wait too much longer to bid Tim Cook adieu.
| Whoever takes over next has a lot of work ahead to dig out of the
| hole Tim Cook dug for Apple.
|
| Tim Cook might be the best thing for shareholders but he has been
| horrible for product quality (software and hardware) and for
| democracy.
|
| [0] Pay no attention to how much of services revenue came from
| the Google search deal with the majority of the rest coming from
| casinos for children and adults alike.
|
| [1] Like the EU DMA, which, I have publicly and privately voiced
| my dislike of parts of it but Apple has no one to blame but
| themselves. By keeping a white-knuckle grip on their revenue they
| forced governments across the world to pass laws (often bad IMHO)
| that fragment and confuse the entire iOS market.
| godzillabrennus wrote:
| Tim Cook has been horrible for software, but the hardware under
| his regime has been incredible.
| joshstrange wrote:
| May I introduce you to years he let Jony Ive control that.
| Which brought us things like the butterfly keyboard, thinness
| at all costs (battery life), and loss of ports (in part due
| to thinness) that had to be walked back.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Yeah, I have no love for Ive's anti-bauhaus philosophy of
| form-uber-alles.
|
| Ports hiding on the back so you have to endure the sound of
| USB-tin scraping against anodized aluminum, the round
| mouse, etc.
| bigyabai wrote:
| Incredible is stretching things. Apple had to catch up with
| AMD in efficiency, and they did that. Outside the mobile
| market, Apple is basically a non-entity.
| Miraste wrote:
| Apple doesn't have huge sales volume for Macs because of
| macOS and their astronomical pricing schemes, but it's not
| because of the hardware. Macbooks are easily the best
| laptops you can buy for most purposes, and they have been
| since the M1 came out. That has never been true of Apple
| computers before.
| bigyabai wrote:
| It's because of the hardware. For mobile Apple is
| competitive, for desktop applications they don't even
| show up on most benchmarks next to AMD/Nvidia hardware.
|
| For example, you have to scroll beneath last-gen laptop
| GPUs before you can find any Apple hardware on the OpenCL
| charts: https://browser.geekbench.com/opencl-benchmarks
| Miraste wrote:
| That's also because of software. Apple deprecated OpenCL
| in MacOS eight years ago. In productivity software with
| solid Metal implementations, like Blender, the M4 Max is
| on par with the top of Nvidia's (mobile) 5xxx line,
| except with much more VRAM.
| jajuuka wrote:
| I agree that the early days when every app was a single
| purchase and the prices were much higher it made more sense. A
| lot of people got rich from the App Store. So 30% wasn't a huge
| piece when you were seeing consistent growth every year in the
| user base.
|
| I think the most annoying thing is how unevenly the policy is
| applied. Some megacorps pay the 30% and others like Amazon get
| sweetheart deals. So it unfortunately comes down to who
| benefits more. If you have something Apple really wants then
| they will cut a deal. But if not then you pay the high tax.
| They've at least cut it down somewhat for smaller devs and
| teams, but the whole industry needs to change.
| IAP/Subscriptions shouldn't just inherit the pricing systems of
| old.
|
| I have a feeling Tim is just going to tank the Trump stuff and
| then peace out next admin so he gets all the blame. Much like
| Ive and Dye have been.
| joshstrange wrote:
| > I think the most annoying thing is how unevenly the policy
| is applied. Some megacorps pay the 30% and others like Amazon
| get sweetheart deals.
|
| I agree, there were deals down to 15% I think (maybe lower)
| but I don't think that's still happening? I mean, Netflix
| finally gave up but only after increasing their IAP fee to
| cover the difference for many years. I might be behind the
| times on this but I didn't think they still had better cuts
| for larger corporations. I do know not all developers are
| treated the same (see Meta still being on the app store after
| all the shenanigans they pulled with enterprise certs, or
| Uber), and that does suck. It means that if you are big
| enough you can break the rules while an indie dev can have
| everything taken due to an automated system or mistake, even
| when it's not their fault.
|
| > I have a feeling Tim is just going to tank the Trump stuff
| and then peace out next admin so he gets all the blame. Much
| like Ive and Dye have been.
|
| I agree that's likely, though the thought of him staying till
| the "end" of that is not attractive.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| 30% was always excessive.
|
| I suspect developers are looking for these workaround because
| of the 30%. If Apple had asked for, say, 10%, would there be as
| many developers looking for loopholes?
|
| I don't know. Apple perhaps should ask for compensation for
| "vouching for" the developer's app, hosting the app,
| distributing the app. But Steam shows us another model where
| the developer themselves pay a modest up-front cost to have
| their app hosted ($100) and then Steam steps out of the way.
|
| I wonder if this would go a long way too to thinning the herd
| so to speak from the Apple App Store--perhaps improve the
| overall quality of the apps submitted.
| cyberax wrote:
| I think a lot of developers were willing to let it slide when
| App Store was a luxury market. You could just ignore it and
| make regular webapps and/or desktop software.
|
| But now iOS is the most popular computing platform in the US.
| We no longer _have_ an option to ignore it.
|
| And 30% is just crazy. And it's _on_ _top_ of all other
| expenses: Apple hardware that you need to buy to develop for
| iOS, $100 per year subscription fee, overhead of using
| Apple's shitty tools, etc.
| scottyah wrote:
| To be fair, the fee is really 15%- 30% only comes into play
| only after you've made $1mm USD in the prior year.
| idontwantthis wrote:
| Isn't this what Epic just sued and won over?
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Epic didnt really win. If i recall correctly the ruling ended
| up being that 3rd party payment processors are allowed but 27%
| of app revenue is still owed to apple if that route is taken.
| So you can save 3% by using 3rd party payment processing but
| thats around how much those services cost anyway so no real
| saving
| ceejayoz wrote:
| They _tried_ that. The judge, correctly, went "uh the fuck
| you will".
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games_v._Apple
|
| > While Apple implemented App Store policies to allow
| developers to link to alternative payment options, the
| policies still required the developer to provide a 27%
| revenue share back to Apple, and heavily restricted how they
| could be shown in apps. Epic filed complaints that these
| changes violated the ruling, and in April 2025 Rogers found
| for Epic that Apple had willfully violated her injunction,
| placing further restrictions on Apple including banning them
| from collecting revenue shares from non-Apple payment methods
| or imposing any restrictions on links to such alternative
| payment options. Though Apple is appealing this latest
| ruling, they approved the return of Fortnite with its third-
| party payment system to the App Store in May 2025.
| hiprob wrote:
| What are you going to do about it? Use Android?
| esseph wrote:
| GrapheneOS
| tcoff91 wrote:
| launch an in-app browser and don't use apple as the payment
| processor.
|
| The Epic v Apple lawsuit verdict makes this allowed now.
| ethanrutherford wrote:
| Always hated apple for their putrid business practices. Add this
| to the pile.
| thisislife2 wrote:
| I call this the Apple "idiot tax" - 'cos you have to be an idiot
| in letting Apple exploit you (the developer and the user) this
| brazenly.
| dymk wrote:
| Victim blaming
| thisislife2 wrote:
| _Every time you spend money, you are casting a vote for the
| kind of world you want._ - Don 't most of you here tell me
| that corporates don't need regulations as smart people "vote
| with their wallet"? If this is what you want to spend money
| on, I feel justified with the term "idiot" ...
| dpc_01234 wrote:
| Oh, now ios users are an oppressed group. How cute.
| mort96 wrote:
| This is counterproductive. The only alternative to letting
| Apple exploit you is letting Google exploit you. There are
| differences, Google is somewhat better on this specific point,
| but there's enough things Google is worse at (such as privacy)
| that choosing Google isn't exactly without downsides.
|
| Your mindset results in Apple users thinking "the problem is
| those stupid Android idiots who accept being in an ad tech
| company's spyware garden" and Android users thinking "the
| problem is those stupid Apple idiots who accept that 30% of
| literally everything they do goes to Apple". In reality, we
| have a common enemy in the big tech duopoly and extremely
| lacklustre regulation which lets them keep doing this shit. You
| calling me an idiot for making a different shitty trade-off
| than you helps nobody.
| thisislife2 wrote:
| You do have an alternative to both Google and Apple, which
| gives you the best of both worlds - it's called the Sailfish
| mobile OS - https://sailfishos.org/ . (As for my snarky post,
| read my other comment in this same thread to understand why I
| posted what I posted.)
| mort96 wrote:
| I don't think I can send or receive money to and from my
| friends or pay my public transport fare from Sailfish.
| thisislife2 wrote:
| If there's an Android app for it, it should run on
| Sailfish OS too. They are working hard to make more and
| more apps compatible with it as this old discussion
| highlights - https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/banking-apps-
| on-sailfish-os/1...
| frizlab wrote:
| I think it's not that simple. These are not my words and I cannot
| only post the link [0] as the author uses the referrer to hide
| his articles from HN, but here's the text:
|
| Once again, Patreon is going to strong-arm all of us into "charge
| at the moment of sign-up" instead of "charge on the first of the
| month." They have wanted this for years, and once again they are
| saying that Apple has given them cover to demand it. Here's what
| I wrote when they tried to pull this shit a year and a half ago
| and then chickened out:
|
| Patreon has two billing models, monthly (bills on the first of
| the month, or whenever they get around to it) and daily (charges
| you the moment you sign up.)
|
| For several years now, they have been trying really hard to get
| creators to switch to daily billing whether they like it or not,
| with a series of intrusive nags and dark patterns. E.g., the
| "Settings" tab always has an "unread" alert on it reminding me
| that I have not made the "recommended" change.
|
| Now they're going to force everyone to switch, and they're
| blaming Apple for it. And, to be clear, fuck Apple, but also fuck
| Patreon, this is their choice and it's going to mean that I can
| no longer use their service.
|
| Here's a support request I just sent them, again, after clicking
| 15 levels deep into their FAQ before finding the thing that might
| contact a human. Since the email alerting me of this change came
| from a "noreply" address because of course it did.
|
| Feel free to send your own:
|
| ---
|
| Subject: Subscription billing is unacceptable
|
| You recently sent mail saying that you're going to force me to
| switch from monthly billing to subscription billing.
|
| Subscription billing is unacceptable for my Patreon. It does not
| work.
|
| I sell monthly memberships to a physical nightclub. The
| memberships begin on the first of the month. I fulfill and mail
| the physical membership cards on the first of the month. If you
| make me switch to daily billing, that means I will have to do
| merch fulfillment on a daily basis instead, and I simply cannot
| do that.
|
| If you force me to switch from a monthly cycle to a daily cycle I
| will have no choice but to stop using Patreon.
|
| To be clear: I do not give a shit about the iOS app. Not one
| fractional fuck is given. If the solution to this problem is that
| people cannot sign up for, or access, my Patreon from the iOS
| app, that is 100% acceptable to me.
|
| I know for a fact that none -- zero, 0% -- of my patrons have
| signed up using the iOS app. I know this because I had to warn
| them away from it, due to the 30% Apple Tax, and all of them
| complied. All of them. The iOS app is utterly meaningless to me
| and to my patrons.
|
| (Also you are blaming this on Apple's bullying, which is simply
| not credible. You've been nagging me to change to subscription
| billing for years, with the little red error icon appearing
| everywhere. This is your decision. You are transparently using
| Apple as an excuse.)
|
| ---
|
| I said this same thing to you a year and a half ago, the last
| time you tried to pull this nonsense. Second verse, same as the
| first. Last time, support replied that they "completely get why
| this change would be upsetting" and "will bring my feedback to
| the team." Uh huh.
|
| Patreon's absolutely awful level of service and support has been
| a huge problem for quite some time, but I am really not looking
| forward to having to figure out how to implement recurring
| monthly billing on my own.
|
| Patreon, YOU HAD ONE JOB.
|
| [0] https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/01/patreon-is-lying-again-
| and-...
| mrcwinn wrote:
| While its true that creators often share "extras" in return for
| support, it's crazy to call the support itself a "digital good."
| I can only assume they mean it is digitally good for their
| business.
| dankwizard wrote:
| Just do what we all do to dodge this, have the Account management
| and purchasing abilities sit inside an embedded browser window
| that opens up from a button push in the app. Yes it adds a little
| barrier but with Apple Pay it is a very small barrier and the
| juice is worth the squeeze.
| iknowstuff wrote:
| Don't they forbid this? Spotify couldn't even link to their
| website in the US lol
| colechristensen wrote:
| This was a result of the Apple vs Epic case, external payment
| processors avoiding the fee were enabled in the US in May
| 2025.
| kccqzy wrote:
| If it was enabled, why can Apple still demand 30% cut here?
| Couldn't Patreon just switch to external payment processors
| citing the Epic case?
| kccqzy wrote:
| In practice I've seen apps just game the system by (1) using
| IAP using the normal flow, and (2) giving user a button
| unrelated to purchasing that would open a new WebView, which
| just happens to contain a purchase button.
| m132 wrote:
| Patiently waiting for a mandatory 30% fee on every transaction
| made with iOS banking software. Maybe that'll put a definitive
| stop to forcing mobile "apps" with jailbreak detection on
| customers and have banks think twice before crippling the
| functionality of their websites.
|
| Please Apple, make this happen.
| DANmode wrote:
| Never.
|
| Popular apps have been exempt from these rules since the
| beginning of time.
| wmf wrote:
| Is Patreon not popular?
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